Divorcing sulking DH - it WILL happen in 2021!

[jamaisjedors]

Another year, another thread !

Can't believe this is thread number SIX ! and that I am still getting amazing support from all the wonderful mumsnetters out there !

RECAP :
First thread from December 2019 after my H ruined my birthday weekend (and 1st anniversay of my dad's death) by giving me the silent treatment all weekend to "punish me" for not being grateful enough for him coming away and buying me a present and a card.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3448545-Confronting-DH-about-his-sulking?msgid=84022238

Thanks to some amazing posters I realised that H's behaviour (which was not at all a one-off) was emotionally abusive and unacceptable.

I prepared to leave him and got plans in place but got "hoovered" back in by H with promises of joint counselling, individual counselling for him, and regular "date nights". Unfortunately none of that changed the dynamic in our relationship : 2nd thread :

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3498886-Confronting-DH-about-his-sulking-part2?msgid=85957683

I started a 3rd thread in May when H and I had decided to separate :

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3580872-LEAVING-sulking-H?msgid=88239005

and that's when things got nightmarish.

As everyone on here pointed out, the most dangerous time for women is when they decide to leave an abusive partner.

In a nutshell, H went missing, had an acute psychotic episode, was admitted to a psychiatric facility and stayed there for over 2 months.

Staff at the hospital warned me H could be dangerous for me and advised me to move out of the family home asap which I did, in fear for my life.

Fourth thread :
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/a3637219-DIVORCING-sulking-H?msgid=92845754#92845754

saw me going to court to safeguard the DC through a request for full custody with limited visiting rights for exH.

With the help of my great lawyer we got the decision we wanted from the judge but the battle never ends over every little thing - schools, activities, money...

Fifth thread :
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3786349-Divorcing-sulking-H-will-it-happen-in-2020?msgid=102523551

But exH appealed against the judge's initial decision so we had to go back to court in mid-February and with COVID etc. the ruling came in June 2020.

The saga continued as the judge ruled she didn't have enough information to make a decision about custody (exH didn't provide any) and so in November 2020 the whole family had to go for a "psychological assessment".

Right now we are still:

• waiting for the expert's psychological report as to whether exH is safe to have the DC overnight
• still waiting for the designated solicitor to draw up a financial settlement
• waiting for exH to agree to the divorce - but after 2 years living separately (May 2021 or September 2021) he will have no choice.

Which is why 2021 WILL be the year of the divorce !

I keep posting after all this time because:

a) I have had and continue to get brilliant, incisive, caring advice and support from other posters
b) I regularly see threads from women with "sulking" partners and who might (I hope) gain some insight into their situation by taking a look at my threads and the advice on them
c) my threads are absolute proof of the fact that leaving an abusive man is dangerous (even when you are not even sure yourself whether he is really abusive or not). We were a "normal" family, looked "perfect" from the outside, and suddenly we have been involved with social services, police, courts. I can't even begin to imagine how hard all that must be without the financial means and real-life/online support that I have had.

Happy also for anyone to PM me if anything in my threads strikes a chord with you

We all holding your hand through this

Good luck today.

Thinking of you today @jamais. You've been absolutely brilliant with all this, so stay strong you've got this. X

thank goodness it is drawing to a close. You have managed to deal with everything thrown so far, and all he has achieved is to make himself look more and more like the person you have rightfully described him as.

Whatever he attempts to pull out of the hat now will be put to bed. Try not to react to it, take a couple of days, let your solicitor go through all his madness and finally put the final nail in it all. I am expecting him to have saved something completely outrageous, but its the dying and desperate death throws of a now powerless beast.

And make sure you have something relaxing planned for this evening

unmumsnetty hugs here

Best of luck from Australia Jamais! What a journey!!!

Bonne chance! (Did I spell that correctly? Well, the sentiment remains the same.) 💐

Best of luck today @jamaisjedors from Ireland!
You're doing brilliantly!!!

I LOVE that you have people all over the world wishing good things for you.

Wishing you good luck for the hearing today Jamais - it's been a long road and will continue to be so, but you're so much further down it than you were!

I'm one of the women you mention you hope you can help and inspire by continuing to post. Thank you.

Courage...

Best of luck Jamais! I hope all goes well!

Hoping to hear good news from Australia

Hope the hearing goes well (from Sweden) - been following since thread #1

dear @jamaisjedors,
we were talking in private in 2019 (CyclingMum. name changed). I finally found the strength to believe in myself (it s not all in my head) and i moved out last week. Husband was and is a sulker, he had started mocking me when i spoke or had something to say that he didnt like. I felt that i didnt have a voice and my feelings didnt matter.
I now have a nice view on the roofs of the town and can see the sunset.
Thank you for being a role model for all of us who are gaslighted to believe we are the "psycho" "manipulative" "liar" distorting the truth (we are not!).
i also wanted to say (sorry a bit off topic) that my DH is 14 years older than me, and having had an abusive father, whose love was conditional, i felt always under pressure to be good and to "dance to an older man's tune" to please him and hoping to rewrite history (but there never was an happy ending).
The ony adult relationship i managed, where i felt on the same level, and not abused, was with a man my age. With older men, i seem to always have fallen in the trap of behaving like a good child, instead of having a voice of my own.
I thought it might be relevant, as you say you are seeing DJ who is a bit younger. That made me reflect.
I hope everything goes well! Long time lurker and always wishing you lots of happyness when i read your updates.

Wow such great support 😮 thank you all!

The hearing went as expected, exh's lawyer painted me as a liar and his client as a poor victim who had an unfortunate isolated incident due to the separation.

My lawyer explained how we see things and the recent events.

The judge said nothing.

We will get a decision in early October.

A friend came with me which was great, but obviously she couldn't come in with me.

I got home feeling absolutely shattered, and I'll admit right now to feeling very worn down by the whole thing and tired of fighting all the time.

I still have to produce more financial evidence to counter ex's endless accusations but will try and get that done in the next couple of weeks to be able to enjoy the summer.

Made the mistake of looking at my email and reading an email from exh who is asserting his rights and pushing boundaries about the arrangements for the summer and i just generally feel exhausted.

I think the fact that exh was at the hearing (last time he didn't come) has also shaken me up, sitting in the same waiting room as him and then in front of the judge has really tested my nerves.

I'll be back on fighting form tomorrow but sometimes it's just all a bit overwhelming.

Thanks again for your wonderful support.

Hope it went ok and you can forget about it all for a while now, Jamais

Oh sorry he got to you.
One thing he will never get however, is You, That will always be his biggest échec... 😉

Well done.

Of course it's unnerving and exhausting having to defend yourself against complete lies it's gaslighting in its extreme.

Keep on keeping on!

@CyclingMumKent missed your post!!!!

Wow big congratulations, i have thought about you often! Well done for your strength and courage, iirc your dc are quite young which makes things even tougher.

I hope you are enjoying that view and your freedom.

Definitely something in the older man thing for me, exh was about yrs older but seemed more when we met. You are correct, mr dj is (quite a bit ) younger and the dynamics are totally different, it's a bit of a novelty to me!

Was thinking about you this afternoon. Hope you get a good nights sleep - it will all look better in the morning.

I can almost see him hamming it up to the judge in a very 90’s Gerard Depardieu kind of way when his lawyers were painting him as a victim, he’d be all puppy dog eyes, and when you were a liar, he’d be glaring and furious. Ugh!!!

Had a bit of a sob on Mr Dj's ample shoulder yesterday and feel much better !

@Justilou1 - couldn't see exH (very different physique to G Depardieu - because he was sideways from me on the same row of chairs and I was keeping my eyes on the judge - who definitely looked directly at me several times during the accusations.

EXH was making copious and obvious notes, that's all I could see.

Performance paranoia, I expect!

Wonder if it has occurred to him that if he keeps postponing the divorce when he dies you will get everything? How is his health?